Remembering Sarah

by Chris Mooney

  How do I say goodbye to what I don’t even know? When was the right time to give up on the people you loved?

  Mike turned around and stared down Evergreen Street. Two boys were having a sword fight with sticks, going at it hard, the mother or babysitter sitting in a plastic patio chair on the porch, flipping through the magazine spread out on her lap.

  Maybe if he went through with a service of some sort, maybe it would tell his circle of friends that he had finally accepted Sarah was gone. I love you, Sarah. Goodbye. Now everybody leave me the fuck alone.

  Some time later, he took out his phone and dialed Sam’s number.

  “Your ears must be burning,” Sam said. “I was just talking about you.”

  “Oh yeah? With who?”

  “With Nancy. I just got off the phone with her. She called to tell me about her blind date last night.”

  Mike thought of Nancy coming at some guy with that truck-driver mouth of hers. Poor bastard.

  Sam said, “ How’d it go in New York?”

  “It’s been … You in the mood for some company?”

  “Sure. You eat yet?”

  “No. How you feel about dogs?”

  “I had terriers growing up.”

  “What about big dogs who drool?”

  “I’ve got plenty of towels.”

  “One last question: If Nancy’s free, you mind if I ask her to stop by?”

  “Not at all. What’s going on?”

  Mike turned his attention back to Jonah’s gravesite. “I’ll explain when I get there.”

  Over dinner,Mike filled Sam in on New York, Merrick and Bill.

  “You probably know why I asked Nancy to come over,” he said.

  “Makes sense, especially after what you just told me.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. If you need to dig into these things, then dig. Dig as far as you want to go, and if you decide that you want to stop, then stop. There’s no right answer here. Who gives a shit what anyone else says or thinks?”

  “You always knew how to get right to the point, Sam.”

  “It’s better than living life in those pesky gray zones.”

  They ate in silence for a moment. Mike said, “I had a good time the other night.”

  “The cannolis were good.”

  “I was referring to the company.”

  Sam smiled. “I know.”

  It had been a good time. Nice and effortless. No pressure to act or say anything in a certain way. That comfortable rhythm that they once had was back again and he didn’t want to ruin it.

  “My life is a bit messy,” he said.

  “Everyone’s life is messy, Sully.”

  The doorbell rang and Fang popped his sleepy head up off the floor. Sam buzzed Nancy in, and when she stepped into the dining room with a bellowing “Howyadoin?” Fang scrambled over to meet her, tail wagging, sniffing madly around her body.

  Mike said, “You want me to pull him away?”

  “Are you kidding? This is the most affection a man’s shown me in weeks.” Fang followed Nancy as she walked over to the table and sat down. “So,” she said to Mike. “What are you so anxious to talk to me about?”

  Mike told her. When he finished, Nancy was quiet, digesting all of it, Mike supposed. Sam’s windows were open; a cool evening breeze, mixed with the sounds of traffic and people, filled the room.

  “Okay,” Nancy said. “Margaret Clarkston didn’t come right out and admit to having an abortion.”

  “No, she didn’t come right out and say yes,” Mike said, “but I know the question hit home.”

  Sam said to Nancy, “Can you find out if she had the procedure?”

  “Normally, I’d say yes,” Nancy said. “Nowadays, health insurance picks up the tab. And everything’s stored on MIB.”

  Mike said, “What’s MIB?”

  “Medical Information Bureau,” Nancy said. “Basically, it’s a computer network that stores all of your medical records. Insurance companies generally use it.”

  “I thought medical records were private.”

  “Welcome to the digital age. Forget MIB. I doubt you’d find any information there. Margaret Clarkston’s somewhere in her late sixties, right?”

  “Sixty-six,” Mike said. Her age had been noted in a recent Globe article.

  “That meant she had Caroline when she was twenty-seven—real old for back then. So let’s say she had this procedure done when she was, oh, I don’t know, twenty. That’s forty-five years ago—1958. Your dad wore a cardigan sweater and smoked a pipe while your mom was just oh so happy to be playing Susie Homemaker. You didn’t mention the word abortion, let alone have one.”

  Sam added, “If she had one done, chances are it was done in secret.”

  “And hopefully by a doctor who didn’t botch the job,” Nancy said. “Pay your cash, get it done and pray that you’d be okay. It was a completely different time back then. No yellow page ads, no pro-life commercials on TV. Before sixty-seven, abortions were illegal.”

  “And no computers either,” Sam said. “At least, no personal computers. Back then, everything was stored on paper.”

  Mike said, “So there’s no record of the procedures.”

  “For Clarkston? I doubt it. Even when Rose Giroux had the procedure, I’m willing to bet it was still secretive,” Nancy said. “A lot of women probably gave anonymous names, paid in cash. No records. And even if a file did exist—I’d say it’s next to impossible, but let’s say that a paper file does exist somewhere. The only way I’m going to get my hands on it is to bribe someone who works at this clinic. I think that’s a dead angle anyway. I’m willing to bet that place in New Hampshire wasn’t even around when Margaret Clarkston had it done.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that there’s no way to find out,” Mike said, feeling defeated.

  “The best way is to ask directly, which you did. If Merrick calls her,my guess is she’ll say no to him. Cops generally don’t call over the phone. They show up to your house unannounced and shove a badge in your face and make you talk until you give them what they want. What’d he say about this?”

  “He said he’d look into it.”

  “And you don’t believe that,” Nancy said, “which is why I’m sitting here.”

  “You got it.”

  “Can I be honest here?”

  “Is it possible for you to be any other way?” Mike asked.

  A grin tugged at the corner of Nancy’s mouth, then disappeared. “My sources told me the police already found personal items belonging to all three girls inside Jonah’s house, under a floorboard in his bedroom. And we know about the blood inside the jacket hood, and we know Jonah committed suicide.”

  Mike took in a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry,” Nancy said. “I guess I don’t understand the point of trying to investigate something that’s a dead end and is only going to prolong your pain.”

  “Why am I the only one who finds this odd?”

  “Women get abortions. Not all women, but when a woman decides to get it done, they don’t go around advertising it. Maybe they confide in a friend or two, but mostly they keep quiet and go on with their lives, try to come to grips with what they’ve done.

  “Which brings me to my second point,” Nancy said. “You’re Catholic. As a fellow die-hard Catholic myself, I speak from firsthand experience when I say that us Catholics, practicing or not, are terminally obsessed with shame and guilt. I’m not trying to play armchair shrink here, but have you ever considered that your need to continually poke around despite the overwhelming facts might have something to do with you trying to correct what happened that night on the Hill?”

  “What if there’s a connection to Jonah buried in all of this?”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know,” Mike said. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some sort of connection.”

  “I hate to say this,” Nancy said, “but I think yo
u’re grasping at straws here.”

  “So you’re not even willing to entertain the idea?”

  “I bill out at one-twenty an hour, plus expenses. You want me to dig, I’ll dig. It’s your tab.”

  “I think this warrants some digging.”

  “Okay then,” Nancy said. “I’m officially on the clock. Let me grab a pad of paper and we’ll get started.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Mike’s phone rang at 6:45 the next morning.

  “Nadine’s having a palm-reading party tonight at Bam’s,” Wild Bill said.

  “Bam know about this?”

  “Knows about it and is going to be there. So are you and I. We’ll take turns videotaping Bam as he gets his aura read. What are you doing right now?”

  “Lying in bed next to a big wet spot.”

  “That’s my boy.”

  “It’s dog drool. What’s all that yelling?”

  “That would be the twins. They’re running around the house—I swear Patty puts caffeine in their milk. I’m sitting here at the kitchen table with my box of cereal. For the record, Lucky Charms are no longer magically delicious. You eat breakfast yet?”

  “Some of us like to sleep in on Sundays.”

  “Come on over. Bring the dog—and Father Jack. The twins need an exorcism.”

  Mike hopped in the shower. Nancy Childs’s plan for today was to attend her goddaughter’s baptism in Wellfleet, a town at the uppermost tip of the Cape, and then head back sometime later in the afternoon and hopefully talk with Jonah’s hospice nurse, Terry Russell. Nancy promised to call and update him sometime mid week. That was how they left it last night.

  Now, though? Mike didn’t see the point in waiting. Nancy didn’t know any more than he did about what was going on—in fact, she probably knew less, so why wait? Why not get the ball rolling? The best time to talk was in the morning, after a full night’s rest, when your mind was relaxed and fresh.

  After he finished dressing, Mike grabbed the leather writing pad from his office and headed out to Terry Russell’s house.

  Two cars were parked in her driveway. Mike parked against the curb, got out and climbed Terry’s stairs. The front windows were open but the blinds were drawn, and there was a two-inch gap between the windowsill and the shades. He wanted to check and see if she was awake—it was 8:30—so he bent down and peered through the screen, relieved to see a shadow moving across the far wall where he saw two rows of neatly labeled boxes. Terry was home, and judging by the faint chink-chink noise he heard, she was probably unloading her dishwasher.

  He stood up and rang the doorbell, expecting to hear footsteps. He waited a full minute and then went back to the window and bent back down. Terry’s shadow was no longer moving,Terry standing absolutely still.

  “Terry, it’s Mike Sullivan. Can I talk with you for a moment?”

  A pair of legs came out from the kitchen. By the time Mike stood back up,Terry had cracked open the front door.

  “Sorry, I thought you might have been a reporter,” she nearly whispered behind the screen. She wore jeans, sneakers and a plain gray Champion sweatshirt, her gold cross, as always, on display. Her hands were covered by the same kind of yellow rubber cleaning gloves Jess wore to clean the bathrooms and stove. “Come on in.”

  The cool air inside the apartment was heavy with Pine Sol. The bookcases were naked, the contents packed in the neatly stacked and labeled boxes near the window.

  “I didn’t know you were moving,” he said.

  “Neither did I until a few days ago. This amazing opportunity came up and, well, I decided to jump on it.”

  “Judging by that smile on your face I’m guessing it has nothing to do with the hospice business.”

  Her smile gained some wattage. “A good friend of mine works at this spa in Phoenix, Arizona. She called the other night and we got to talking, and she started telling me about how the spa’s looking for a new massage therapist. Sally—that’s my friend—knows I used to be a massage therapist years ago. So we get to talking, and Sally is telling me about how nice the weather is out there, you know, warm and sunny all the time—great weather if you suffer from fibromyalgia.”

  Mike looked at her, puzzled.

  “Fibromyalgia is … well, doctors don’t know exactly what it is for sure, but it’s like having a really bad flu and your muscles ache all the time. It’s worse in the winter, and this was a really bad winter. Anyway,” she continued brightly, “Sally’s single like me and owns this really nice house. She’s going to let me stay with her until I find a place to rent—or she said I could stay with her for good.”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  “I’m really looking forward to it, especially after everything that’s—” She stopped herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound insensitive.”

  “You’re not. I’m happy for you.”

  “Thank you. So what brings you by at such an early hour? And with a notepad no less.”

  “I’m sure you’re probably sick and tired of answering questions.”

  Terry’s smile was polite. “I’d be fibbing if I said no.”

  “Reporters still bothering you?” Mike asked. They hadn’t bothered him, or maybe they had just grown tired of trying to chase him down all the time and had given up.

  “The calls have pretty much tapered off, but every now and then they’ll drop by here unannounced—please don’t take that the wrong way.”

  Mike waved it off. “Believe me, I understand where you’re coming from. It’s just, well, I’ve come across some information and I didn’t want to wait for Nancy Childs—she’s the investigator—to stop by. She’ll probably be calling you sometime this afternoon. You going to be around?”

  Now Terry looked puzzled. “I thought the case was closed—at least, that was what Detective Merrick told me.”

  “Sorry. This woman Nancy is a private investigator. The question I have, I know it’s going to sound a little off the wall, but just bear with me.”

  “Let’s sit down.”

  Mike sat in the same spot he did the other day. “Yesterday, I found out that my wife along with the women from the other two families, Rose Giroux and Margaret Clarkston, these three very Catholic women had—” he didn’t want to use the word abortion in front of Super Catholic here—“they elected to have their pregnancies terminated.”

  The shock on Terry’s face barely masked her disgust.

  “I’m not sure about Margaret Clarkston,” Mike said. “But I know for a fact that Rose Giroux and my wife had it done at the same clinic in New Hampshire. Rose Giroux—that’s Ashley’s mother—she told me she had spoken to Jonah about it.”

  “For confession?”

  “Yes. The first priest, he didn’t take too kindly to the news and said—”

  “As well he shouldn’t. What that woman did was murder.”

  “Jonah forgave—”

  “It’s murder. Some priests forgive that sort of thing—just as some priests and cardinals knowingly shuffled sexual predators to other parishes and then covered up their disgusting actions. To use your power to hide such a thing is an absolute disgrace. It’s a sin. But God will deal with them properly, just as He’ll deal with Father Jonah properly.”

  The room had an awful stillness to it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  The indignation set in Terry’s face slowly melted away, her features softening, slipping back into the bright and pleasant woman who had greeted him at the door.

  “I should be the one who’s apologizing,” she said. “I didn’t mean to go off on a rant. It’s just … What happened here in Boston with Cardinal Law, and now what you just told me about Father Jonah—it makes it hard to keep believing.”

  “In God?”

  “No, not God.” No, of course not God, you fool—and how dare you even think such a thing. “When I was growing up, I never considered the Catholic Church a political organization,” she said.
“But that’s exactly what it is. It’s a business. It’s always been that way, I suppose, but it didn’t sink in until my sister tried to get her first marriage annulled. She was married for a year with a baby girl when her husband just packed up and left. Wanted nothing to do with her anymore. The church wouldn’t annul her marriage on account of the baby. Now take that example and compare it to the son of senator you-know-who who was married for something like twenty years and had four children. The priest granted that annulment right away. It’s disheartening, but that’s the way things get done in life—and in the Catholic Church. You wouldn’t believe the stories Father Jonah told me.”

  “Like what?”

  “He just talked about how political the church was. I’m sure some of that—well, maybe even all of it came from his bitterness at being defrocked. He missed it. Being a priest, I mean.”

  And the cloak of secrecy it provided him, Mike added privately.

  “I know Father Jonah spoke to Father Connelly a lot,” she said. “He’s a priest at St. Stephen’s. Father Jonah spoke very highly of him.”

  “Father Jack’s on my list. Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything at all?” Mike grasping now.

  “I’ve told you everything I know. That side of Father Jonah that hurt those girls and kept those items hidden under the floorboards of his bedroom—I didn’t know anything about that man. I just knew the man who had cancer.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll let you get back to cleaning,” Mike said and stood up. “Thanks again for your time.”

  CHAPTER 44

  On the way home, Mike called Nancy’s cell phone and left a brief message giving the highlights of his conversation with Terry Russell, and then made a pit stop at Mackenzie’s Market. Mackenzie’s had become a hot spot ever since a local guy bought the winning lottery ticket for a $30 million jackpot about three years ago. Mackenzie’s also had a deli that made great Italian and meatball subs, and in the morning, breakfast sandwiches.

  Mike ordered a fried egg and bacon sandwich on whole wheat along with a coffee and picked up the Sunday editions of the Globe and Herald. He ate his sandwich inside the truck and read the Globe sports—too much baseball coverage; then again, ’tis the season. Ten minutes later, he tossed the paper onto the passenger seat and saw a group of mostly teenage boys walking up Delaney with their whiffle-ball bats. Probably on their way to Ruggers Park. You didn’t go to the park at night, not unless you were looking to score some drugs, and most mornings you’d find condoms mixed with the cigarettes and empty booze bottles scattered on the grass and in the dugouts where hookers often took their johns.